Press Releases

Wilson Urges Solution to Hospice Issue

(Queen’s Park) Simcoe-Grey MPP Jim Wilson rose in the Legislature today to urge the McGuinty to fairly fund Matthews House Hospice in Alliston. The text of his remarks is as follows:

Mr. Jim Wilson (Simcoe-Grey): I want to congratulate the volunteers at
Matthews House Hospice for their successful Hike for Hospice on Sunday
in Alliston. Families, seniors and businesses in South Simcoe provided
tremendous support by donating more than $21,000 to Matthews House in
support of their good work.

But while Matthews House receives wonderful support from the community,
government support is not as generous or even fair. There’s a huge
discrepancy between how hospices are funded in central Ontario. Matthews
House receives 15.6% of their budget from the province while hospices
in York region receive 35% to 40% and some as much as 75%. So my
question to the Premier and the Minister of Health is, why is there such
a divergence of support from the province for the people of New
Tecumseth?

The situation at Matthews House is increasingly urgent. They have lost
one-time funding from both Central LHIN and support from a three-year
Ontario Trillium Foundation grant, which will result in a loss of
employees and cuts in services. To make matters worse, the government
can’t even get their act together to solve this. The Central LHIN told
Matthews House they had to lobby the Minister of Health, and then the
minister told them they had to lobby the LHIN. In fact, they’ve been
working with Amanda McGoey from the minister’s office for months and
months, but those conversations have been completely futile.

We need a solution to this problem. The time for talk is over; it’s time
for the minister to appoint someone with authority to sit down with us
and hammer out a solution. There is absolutely no excuse for the
ministry to deny requests for meetings with local health care providers.